She took a deep breath. “But graduation finally came and while other students went off into the Woods in search of their fairy tales, I dashed back to my stepmother’s cottage in Maidenvale. At first, my sisters wouldn’t speak to me, still furious that I’d ‘stolen’ their place at school. But I was careful never to mention my life as a student and in time, they began giving me chores all over again. Meanwhile, my stepmother tore up any letters that arrived from my schoolmates and burned my old uniforms and textbooks, and soon it was like I’d never gone to the school at all. Which was a relief, honestly, because I was just happy to be laughing with my sisters like it was old times.

“But my stepmother was a jealous wretch and began warning her daughters to keep their distance from me—I was a wolf in sheep’s clothing and would one day betray them, just like I had when I’d taken their spots at school. The bonds between girls who weren’t blood could never last. My stepsisters didn’t believe her, of course. I was family to them. And the truth was, I wanted them to be happy. After seeing my father marry that she-devil and seeing all the stupid energy that Evergirls put into boys at school, I was more than happy to leave marriage and love and princes to my stepsisters, while I lived life in their shadows, perfectly fine with their company and my own.”

Cinderella paused. “So you have to understand, when Professor Dovey came to my house on that famous night and granted my wish to go to the Ball, she—and everyone else who knows my story—thought I wanted to go to the Ball to meet the prince. I never wanted to meet the damn prince! I wanted to go to the Ball because I wanted to see my stepsisters meet the prince! Their whole lives had been building towards the night Prince Keelan would see the eligible girls of the kingdom. And after all those years of me listening to them gush about what they’d say to him and what they’d wear and how they’d win his heart, now they’d finally get their turn in front of him. How could I not be there! They wanted me there too, of course, but they couldn’t dare admit it to stepmother. You should have seen their faces when I cornered them at the Ball and revealed myself, magic slippers and all. Just as I’d played down my time at school to keep us together, now they saw again how much I really loved them: for I’d used a magic wish to see their moment with the prince.”

Her mentor’s eyes slowly dimmed. “When Prince Keelan chose me, I could see the shock in their faces, as if in a single moment, they realized they should have listened to their stepmother all along. The things they called me in that moment, with so many people listening, were so horrible that I can never forget them. I tried to explain to them that I didn’t want the prince—I even ran away from the Ball to prove it. But princes always find their princesses, even when they don’t want them to. He tracked me to my stepmother’s house like a snoop and fit me with the glass slipper I’d left behind. When he proposed to me, I gave him one condition: my stepsisters would come and live at the palace with me, because if I was marrying a man I hardly knew, at least I could live it up in style with my best friends. But he’d seen how my sisters behaved towards me at the Ball and when his men fitted me with the slipper. He couldn’t see in them what I did. Instead, he demanded I choose: either I’d go to the palace alone as his wife or be left behind at the house with my sisters forever. He gave me until the morning to decide and left with his men.”